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Ratte entlaufen!!! [en]

Folgenden Aushang sah ich neulich in der Nähe der Reichenbachbrücke in München. Ich dachte zuerst an einen Hoax, aber die Gegend da war voll von diesen Zetteln:

Hm, ich bin ja kein Biologe, aber ich denke mal die Erfolgsaussichten der Suchaktion sind eher schlecht. Immerhin, dem Viech geht’s wahrscheinlich prächtig!

Ich habe die Telefonnummer, die unten auf dem Zettel stand, geschwärzt – zur Wahrung der Privatsphäre. Falls jemand wider erwarten sachdienliche Hinweise hat, kann er sie gerne über mich weiterleiten;-)

My New Wireless Earphones [en]

One of the things I use my new phone most for, is listening to music. Unfortunately the Nexus One came with a set of regular earbuds, whereas I prefer canalphones. So I started to look for an alternative…

Wireless Audio Basics

The Nexus One has a regular 3.5mm TRRS headphone socket, so it should be easy get new headphones for it. However, I find having a long cable hanging from your ears to your phone in your pocket pretty annoying. That’s why I looked for a wireless alternative. Of course there are plenty of wireless Bluetooth headsets out there, but so far few of them where suitable for listening to music. And most hip headphone brands like WESC or Skullcandy still don’t offer any wireless products.

By the way, it’s not just an issue of sound quality. There simply are different Bluetooth profiles for telephony and for music. Most Bluetooth headsets only support HSP or HFP, which provide sound output and input in mono. They’re good enough for telephony, but horrible for music. That’s where the A2DP profile comes in ‒ it transmits one-way high-quality stereo audio.

Product Description

Until recently, headphones that provide both HSP/HFP and A2DP were rare. But that seems to have changed now, as I found several such devices at a local electronics store. I finally chose a product called Jabra Clipper (PDF Manual) and so far I must say I’m really happy with it. Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see, it’s basically a small clip with earphones attached. Admittedly it’s slightly bigger than let’s say an iPod Shuffle, but it’s still really compact and it looks neat. Controls and the microphone are built into the clip itself, while the earphones are plugged into a 3.5mm TRS socket. This means you can plug in any earphones you like, though for now I stick to those packaged with the product.

The clip also has a micro USB socket for power supply ‒ which is great, since it’s the same as on my new Nexus One. So I can use the same cable to charge the two devices. Plus I can use an arbitrary mirco USB cable to charge it them from my notebook computer when on the road.

Experiences

So how does it work together with the Nexus One? Well, like a charm! Once the two devices are paired and connected, the Nexus One automatically uses it for telephony and for music playback. It uses the appropriate profile respectively and it seamlessly switches from A2DP to HFP for incoming calls while listening to music. The Jabra Clipper only has 3 buttons, but they’re multi-functional and support stuff like power on/off, volume control, skipping songs, answering calls and re-dialing.

However, I’m not only using the Jabra Clipper with the Nexus One. I also paired it with my notebook computer (it remembers multiple pairings) where I can use it for telephony and music, too. It worked out-of-the-box with Debian Squeeze with Gnome, Bluez and Pulse Audio. Finally I have a decent headset for Skype, SIP and XMPP/Jingle. But most of the time I simply listen music through it: I just remove the earphones from the clipper, plug in my stereo and connect from my notebook via Bluetooth A2DP. Then I can use the notebook in a cable-free manner anywhere in my room, and still listen to all my music.

Drawbacks

Nevertheless, wireless audio over Bluetooth is not free of trouble. As with all mobile devices, there’s the limited battery runtime. So far it lasts for about 4 to 5 hours of listening to music. That’s not much, but it’s more than enough for most bike or train rides I do.

Then there’s the problem of wireless connectivity and range. It all works pretty well when the space between the sender and the earphones is not cluttered with solid objects. For instance, when I wear the Jabra Clipper by my chest (e.g. clipped to my shirt or to the straps of my backpack) I have to carry my Nexus One in the front pockets of my pants. Wearing it in the back pockets wouldn’t work with my fat body inbetween:-(

I’m also experiencing certain problems when using the wireless earphones with my notebook computer: when the music stops (e.g. because an album just finished) and resumes later on, the sound output is severely chopped. However, when I end the Bluetooth connection and re-connect after a few seconds, everything is fine again. This happens frequently when using the wireless headphones under desktop Linux, but I never experienced such problems when using them with the Nexus One. So I guess the problem lies somewhere in Bluez or Pulse Audio configuration, and I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to solve this eventually.

Nexus One/Android: First Impressions [en]

Ok, so it’s been a while now, since I’ve got my Nexus One. I have to admit, I did not toy around with it too much yet. Did not even install any custom software ‒ or do I have to say “apps” nowadays?

I have to say it’s a still a pretty amazing phone! However, there are some things that bother me about the out-of-the-box Android 2.2 it’s running:

Google ID
Every other pre-installed app asks me to enter my Google ID before I can use it. Well, I do have a Google ID somewhere, but I certainly don’t want to use it on a regular basis.
Contacts and calendar sync
The contacts and calendar only sync with the corresponding Google services or with Microsoft Exchange. Actually, I cannot even use the calendar without configuring one of these m(
At least I can use contacts without a Google ID. I could even import my old contacts from VCard file.
IMAP Folders
The pre-installed e-mail app works quite well with IMAP accounts. However, there is no way to specify the names of the IMAP folders for drafts and sent messages. It simply assumes “drafts” and “sent”.
Why would I want to change that? Well I’m German after all, so all my other IMAP clients (basically Evolution and Thunderbird) use the corresponding German names for these folders: “Entwürfe” and “Gesendet”. So does the web-mail application of my e-mail provider.
Access to the filesystem
There’s no way to directly access the filesystem of the SD-card from the phone. I did not even find a way to access the downloads-folder without doing a new download.
However, I can easily access the filesystem as a USB mass storage device.
Bluetooth profile support
The out-of-the-box support for Bluetooth is really poor, even compared to my 4 years old Sony Ericsson W850i. The phone does support Object Push and several Headset/Audio Profiles.
However, it lacks many important profiles like OBEX and PAN. That is, I cannot browse the filesystem of the Nexus One via Bluetooth. And my notebook computer cannot use it as a Bluetooth access-point for mobile internet.
And what about more fancy stuff: How about using the phone as a wireless mouse? The motion sensor should be able do the trick!
MP3 streams
Could not find a way to play audio streams, yet. In the browser, when I click the stream URL of my favorite Vienna radio station, I only get to see an Icecast HTML page. The built-in MP3 player does not seem to support streams, either. Podcasts work fine though.

Well, I guess most of these annoyances can be solved by installing appropriate software. I’ll let you know how it all works out…

However, it might be a while till I get around to take care of it. I’m busy with other stuff, too. It’s summer after all!

Geheime Abstimmung beim Volksentscheid Nichtraucherschutz [en]

Diesen Sonntag fand bei uns in Bayern ein Volksentscheid zum Thema Nichtraucherschutz statt. Es ging um den Gesetzentwurf eines Volksbegehrens das sich “Für echten Nichtraucherschutz” einsetzte.

Eigentlich wollte ich nicht teilzunehmen, denn um ehrlich zu sein, habe ich keine dedizierte Meinung zu dem Thema. Ich finde Nichtraucherschutz – also Rauchverbote – zwar prinzipiell gut, und habe auch schon längere Zeit in Ländern gelebt in denen es einen strikten Nichtraucherschutz gibt. Andererseits konnte ich mit dem Status Quo gut leben, und fand die etablierten Ausnahmen des Nichtraucherschutzes ziemlich fair. Nebenbei bemerkt, fand ich das ganze Hick-Hack, das in Bayern um Aufweichungen des Rauchverbots gemacht wurde, eher lächerlich.

Nun ergab es sich, dass ich ohnehin an meinem Wahllokal vorbei kam, und beschloss die Sache mit der Enthaltung amtlich zu machen. Ich wollte also explizit eine Enthaltung, bzw. eine ungültige Stimme abgeben. Warum? Weil ich der Meinung bin, das direkte Demokratie in eine sehr gute Sache ist. Und ich Wählen generell wichtig finde, auch wenn die vorgegeben Alternativen sich oft kaum unterscheiden oder nicht relevant sind. Mit meiner expliziten Enthaltung wollte ich also die Wahlbeteiligung steigern, und der Mehrheitsentscheidung (und Volksentscheiden im Allgemeinen) eine größere Legitimation geben. Das vorläufige Ergebnis bestätigt meine Annahme, dort fließen ungültige Stimmen tatsächlich in Berechnung der Wahlbeteiligung ein.

Nebenbei habe ich einen Aspekt unseres Wahlrechts kennengelernt, der mir so nicht bewusst war. Um die Sache zu beschleunigen, bin ich nach der Aushändigung des Wahlzettels gleich zur Urne, und wollte ihn leer einwerfen. Ich sagte den Wahlhelfern, ich sei mir meines Rechts auf geheime Wahl bewusst, wolle aber in diesem Fall nicht davon Gebrauch machen. Darauf hin klärten sie mich auf, dass es sich hierbei um kein Recht handle sondern um eine Pflicht handle. Ich solle doch in eine der Wahlkabinen gehen, und den Stimmzettel vor der Abgabe falten.

Ich weiß jetzt nicht wie kompetent die Wahlhelfer waren, und ob diese Pflicht zur Geheimhaltung tatsächlich unserem Wahlrecht entspricht. Ich kann natürlich die Überlegungen dahinter verstehen, aber überrascht hat es mich doch. Schließlich gibt es ja auch Befragungen nach der Wahl, wo jeder seine Meinung frei rausplappern darf. Somit verzichtet derjeinige ja faktisch auch auf sein Geheimhaltungrecht!

Update:

Habe mir den Gesetzentwurf nochmal genau durchgelesen, und dabei folgende interessante Stelle gefunden:

Art. 5 Ausnahmen
Das Rauchverbot nach Art. 3 Abs. 1 gilt nicht:
[...]
3. bei künstlerischen Darbietungen, bei denen das Rauchen 
   als Teil der Darbietung Ausdruck der Kunstfreiheit ist.

Es wundert mich, dass noch kein Raucher versucht hat dieses Schlupfloch auszunutzen. Der Begriff “Kunst” kann ja recht weit gefasst werden, wie schon die Dadaisten wussten, z.B. Duchamp mit seinem Pissoir.

Angenommen ich würde z.B. in irgendeinem Club rauchen wollen. Ich könnte ja ein Happening daraus machen, und mir ja folgendes Schildchen anheften:

Rauchender Mann
Michael Riedel, 2010
Tabak auf Filter, brennend
Entliehen aus der Privatsammlung des Künstlers

Dann noch eine Unterschrift aufs T-Shirt kritzeln, und die Sache ist perfekt. Mal sehen, ob das die Securities überzeugt;)

Back to Digital Life [en]

In the beginning of last week, I finally got my first Internet phone that actually deserves the name. So far, I have to say it’s pretty neat:-) It’s a Google/HTC Nexus One and it’s one of the first phones I know that actually feels as smooth as Apple’s iPhone. I say ‘feels’, because that’s what bothered me about most older Android phones: The UI simply felt too unresponsive and unpolished.

More about my experiences with the phone and Android to come. I only started actually using it two days ago, since that’s when my mobile carrier finally managed to activate my data flat-rate. Anyhow, it’s a great feeling to finally have something like a mobile digital life.

That’s why I decided to take it one step further, and finally start to blog, too. Obviously, this is the first post and I’m not quite sure where all of this will lead. I do however have a couple of topics in mind. So stay tuned!